1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor including ceramic dielectric layers and inner electrodes superimposed with the ceramic dielectric layers therebetween and a method for producing a multilayer ceramic capacitor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent progress in electronics technology has required smaller and higher-capacitance multilayer ceramic capacitors. In view of such circumstances, the ceramic dielectric layers constituting a multilayer ceramic capacitor have been made thinner increasingly.
However, if the ceramic dielectric layers are made thinner, the relative intensity of the electric field imposed on each layer increases. This requires an improvement in durability under application of voltage and an improvement in reliability.
An example of a known multilayer ceramic capacitor like that described above is a multilayer ceramic capacitor including: a multilayer body constituted by a stack of ceramic dielectric layers with inner electrodes interposed between adjacent ceramic dielectric layers; and outer electrodes disposed on the outer surface of the multilayer body and electrically connected to the inner electrodes (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-283867). In this document, the inner electrodes of the multilayer ceramic capacitor contain Ni as a main component.
However, the multilayer ceramic capacitor disclosed in this document, which includes the inner electrodes containing Ni as a main component, does not always have a sufficient service life under high-temperature loading. Therefore, the development of a highly-durable multilayer ceramic capacitor having an increased service life under high-temperature loading has been required.